Micro games, very small games with few components and few rules, quick to explain and to play, are a minor trend at the moment. They don’t usually keep you entertained for the whole evening, but they are nice to play a round or three while you wait for pretty much anything. Even in a waiting room or on a train, because they’re very portable. Empire Engine is a micro game by Alderac where everything is about cogs and wheels. The whole planet the game is set on is made from cogs and wheels.

For a game as mired in pop culture as Smash Up, it was unavoidable that the internets favorite Old One would have an appearance at some point. But is The Obligatory Chulhu Set as great as the Old One himself, or will it cause your descent into madness?

You can trust mages to cheat. Always. Every single time. After all, what would you do with the POWER OF THE COSMOS™ at your fingertips. But using it to win Monster Rumble bets? That is pretty low. Is there nohing so low those mages won’t consider it? As it turns out: nope.

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Every night when you go to sleep, your mind gets lost in the Dream Labyrinth. It will wander there for a while and then get back to you in time to wake up. Unless, of course, you are one of the Dreamwalker, for them it’s a fight to return every night, having to find the eight oneiric doors first, chased by nightmares. And they are all alone – or sometimes with one more companion – with the risk of never waking up.

Even the most insane, megalomanic despot will usually plan for a few months of war to conquer the whole world. Eight minutes is optimistic, to say the least. But that’s exactly what you’re going to do in Eight-Minute Empire: carve your name into the world, in mile high letter, in eight to twenty minutes. That’s shorter than your court-appointed painter will take to paint your regal countenance.

There have been many different ideas to spice up trick-taking games over the years. Black Hat’s way to do that is to add a game board where you move your pawns when you take a trick. A lot then depends on proper timing, you want to take a trick when moving on the board is the most beneficial for you.

Haggis the card game has about as much to do with the Scottish national dish as Tichu the Chinese card game has with China. Haggis the card game does have a whole lot to do with Tichu the card game, but with enough differences to make it an interesting game although you might know Tichu already.

Marie Cardouat’s game illustrations have always been in a style fitting for beautiful children’s books, and that is still just as true in HOP!. Beyond the illustrations, the game’s story is equally made for kids. After finding a book describing a magical kingdom in the sky, the child heroes of HOP! decide that they have to see the realm of magical creatures living in the clouds for themselves. And once that decision is made, it is a matter of moments before they are floating into the sky, each carried by a handful of balloons. And just like that you’re in the middle of a dexterity game for the whole family, and prettier than pretty much any other game out there.

Year2009PublisherRavensburgerAuthorStefan FeldPlayers2 – 5Age12 – 199Time90StrategyLuckInteractionComponents & DesignComplexityScore In 1557, the Portuguese first gained the right for permanent settlement on the[…]

The world of Countermay is an odd place. A multiversal crossroads, people from everywhere wash up here, enigmatic aliens right next to undead Egyptians. In their thousand years of war, the Nine Empires have all but killed Countermay, starvation will be the end for everyone unless one Empire manages to be the last one standing. And that’s where you come in …

Legacy games, games where every time you play you make permanent changes to the game, are the big, new thing. Ever since I heard about Risk Legacy, the founder of the genre, I’ve been thinking what other games would work with the addition of Legacy mechanics, and Pandemic was at the top of that list. Now there is Pandemic Legacy, and we all finally get to find out if I was right.